CALL of Duty maker Activision has announced that one of the franchise’s titles is being retired “effective immediately”.
The Microsoft-owned gaming behemoth admitted to millions of COD fans that this particular chapter in the game’s 23 year history had “not met our expectations”.
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Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile was only released little over a year ago.
The free-to-play mobile game hit 15million players in its first four days.
But Warzone Mobile didn’t appear to match the same success COD has seen on PC, PlayStation and Xbox.
The game was withdrawn from Google Play and the Apple’s App Store on Sunday in the first step towards closure.
Read more about game closures
And players can no longer spend real currency in the mobile game.
However, the game isn’t disappearing immediately for those who already have it installed.
Activision says servers will “remain available” for now and it will “notify players of any changes”.
And any remaining COD Points users have can be redeemed in-game towards already available content in the store.
There will not be any new seasonal content and gameplay updates, meaning Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile’s days are numbered and it will eventually close for good once existing users have used up their points and stopped playing.
“This decision was made after careful consideration and while we’re proud of the accomplishment in bringing Call of Duty: Warzone to mobile in an authentic way, it unfortunately has not met our expectations with mobile-first players like it has with PC and console audiences,” Activision said.
Some gamers have called the closure an “end of an era”.
But the vast majority of online reaction seems to be that the decision “isn’t surprising”.
“The game went through so much wrong decision-making, especially with the decision to just tone down the pc/console version for mobile version, instead of developing the game from the ground up,” one person wrote on Reddit.
“The result? Absolute trash of optimization and quality. Even on any newer flagships, the game runs poorly and looks bad.”
WHY DO GAMES CLOSE?
By Jamie Harris, Assistant Technology and Science Editor at The Sun
With most games online these days, tech companies need to maintain quite hefty servers to manage everything.
It’s no cheap business to operate with millions of gamers across the world.
Naturally, people move on, leaving older games behind in the process.
There comes a point where it’s no longer viable to continue offering server access so studios shut them down.
For some games that are entirely online this can render it completely useless.
But others may have a way for you to continue playing solo still.
You should usually see a prominent notification in the game warning you with instructions on what to do – provided you’re still playing the game of course.
FREE UPGRADE OFFER
Fans of Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile are being offered a free upgrade on the franchise’s other mobile title, Call of Duty: Mobile.
Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile players can log in to Call of Duty: Mobile using their Activision account and they’ll receive COD Points redeemable in Call of Duty: Mobile equal to 2X the amount of their Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile COD Points balance.
Plus Activision says it will offer “other awesome rewards”.
Users will have until August 15 to redeem the promotion.
MORE GAME CLOSURES TO BE AWARE OF
Here’s a full list of games earmarked for closure this year:
- MultiVersus – May 30
- xDefiant – June 3
- The First Descendant – June 19
- Black Desert – June 26
- Resident Evil ReVerse – June 29
- Madden NFL 21 – June 30
- Arizona Sunshine – July 1
- Skyworld – July 1
- Danmachi Battle Chronicle – September 29
- WWE 2K24 – September 30
- Madden NFL 22 – October 20
- PGA Tour 2K21 – October 30
- NBA 2K24 – December 31
